As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated. I now work mainly on climate issues, especially in Brighton and Hove, and new work can be found on the website of Climate:Change, our independent think-tank on socially inclusive action in the City: www.climatechangebh.org.uk.
Meanwhile, however, this website has over 850 entries, mostly representing my work on international development from 2010-2025. Among much else, there are over 50 book reviews, more than 20 papers and training cases on bridging research and policy and on managing think-tanks, nearly 100 articles on climate change, and many papers on other topics, including aid, food security and nutrition, and the future of international development. See ‘Topics and Themes’ for more details. I can be reached at sm@simonmaxwell.net.
Doing Development in a Downturn
Doing Development in a Downturn, ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Opinion 104, July 2008. Also published in Open Democracy
2008 has been heralded as a milestone year for the Millennium Development Goals. But political support for the MDGsMillennium Development Goals is in danger of erosion and new messages are needed to maintain momentum. Simon Maxwell argues for two approaches: first, demonstrating that aid actually works and, second, linking the development story to the concerns of voters, proving that their interests, and the interests of those in developing countries, are linked. Common decency extends beyond national boundaries, but opinion polls show that support for international development is broad but shallow – vulnerable to how people feel about prospects at home. New messages need to shift the conversation from ‘them’ to ‘us’, creating a vision in which social justice and social inclusion can only be reached at home if also reached internationally. Development is in everyone’s interest................. (see link in title for full article)